


The Glorious Death

by milowren



Series: The Halls of Valhalla [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Fake Character Death, Gen, Introspection, POV Loki (Marvel), Thor: The Dark World, Thor: The Dark World Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 21:27:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17691377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milowren/pseuds/milowren
Summary: A retelling of Loki's "death" at the end of Thor: The Dark World and the immediate aftermath from his point of view.Loki felt the blade pierce his chest.  It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it should.  It did hurt, but almost in an abstract way that barely registered through his haze of shock.  He stared at the beast before him with wide eyes and grimaced when the blade was shoved in deeper.





	The Glorious Death

Loki felt the blade pierce his chest. It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it should. It did hurt, but almost in an abstract way that barely registered through his haze of shock. He stared at the beast before him with wide eyes and grimaced when the blade was shoved in deeper.

Dimly, he heard Thor shout, his voice curiously muffled as if through water. _Oh, that’s nice,_ Loki thought absently, _he actually does still care_. Apparently that threat to kill him if he betrayed him again was an idle one. 

Without quite realizing how he got there, Loki found himself lying flat on his back, all air forced from his lungs on impact. He gasped, arching off the ground and bringing his hands up to his wound. It was bad, he knew. An exact inverse of the injury that had killed his mother. _Well, isn’t that fitting?_

The Kursed continued to advance, a predator coming to finish off its prey. Loki stared back at him defiantly. He still had one last trick up his sleeve.

“See you in Hel, monster,” he spat with as much strength as he could muster. 

In his single-mindedness, the Kursed had not bothered to remove the sword Loki had shoved through his back, having clearly not noticed the grenade attached to its handle. He was still several feet away when the weapon exploded into fiery tendrils that wrapped around the monster like vines, dragging him into a vortex of its own making. With a roar, the Kursed struggled violently but in vain. The tendrils tightened more and more, consuming him, and the brute collapsed in on himself until there was nothing left but a few floating embers.

Loki fell backwards in relief, still struggling for breath. He had spoken the truth — he would be following that monster into Hel, sooner rather than later. He supposed he should feel grateful. After all, he had meant to die when he let himself fall from the Bifrost two years before. He had been living on borrowed time since then. _Wasted, more like,_ Loki thought bitterly. He doubted there was anything he could do to make up for all the wrongs he had committed since then, to earn his place in Valhalla. Not even sacrificing himself for his brother would tip the scales.

And then Thor was there, kneeling beside him. “No, no no no!” Thor repeated, slipping one hand beneath Loki’s head while the other hovered over the hole in his chest. Loki raised his own shaking hand to grip Thor’s arm weakly. “Ah, you fool, you didn’t listen,” Thor said brokenly.

It was true, he had not. He was supposed to stay with Jane and protect her if needed, not join the fray himself. _But they would have killed you,_ Loki thought. All he said was, “I know. I’m a fool.” Speaking hurt more than breathing, and Loki hunched in on himself involuntarily. “I’m a fool,” he said again through gritted teeth.

Thor briefly touched his face, concern etched into every line of his expression. “Stay with me, okay?” he pleaded.

_I wish I could_. Loki’s breath was coming in short, shallow gasps now. He felt like there wasn’t enough room in his lungs for air, like he was drowning from the inside. “I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly. He was suddenly desperate for his brother’s forgiveness. “I’m sorry – I’m sorry!” He wasn’t even sure what exactly he was apologizing for. For his pointless attack on Midgard, for not being a better brother, for dying? 

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Thor shushed him, tightening his grip on Loki’s shoulder. “It’s all right. I’ll tell Father what you did here today,” he said with a pitiful attempt at a reassuring nod.

His father. Odin. His approval had seemed so important once, hadn’t it? Loki could hardly remember why. In truth, he had not been thinking of Odin at all when he agreed to join Thor on this mission or when he stopped the Kursed from killing him. “I didn’t do it for him,” Loki said honestly. 

He looked past Thor to the sepia-toned sky behind him, briefly registering as his brother’s expression transformed from confusion to grim understanding. He suddenly realized that he felt cold, and Loki never felt cold — a side effect of his Jotun heritage, no doubt. His lungs seemed to have stopped functioning altogether, and he felt strangely light, like Thor’s hold on him was the only thing keeping him grounded. He wanted to tell Thor not to let him float away, but his voice was no longer listening to him. _He won’t let me go,_ was Loki’s last conscious thought before everything faded to black.

 

******

 

When Loki woke, he was alone.

He jerked upright, gasping like he had been wrenched from a nightmare. Looking around, his first thought was that he must be in Hel. But if that were true, then Hel looked a lot like Svartalfheim. Even the corpses of the dark elves they had slaughtered were still strewn across the landscape. 

_Maybe that’s the truth of it,_ Loki thought. _Maybe Hel traps you in the place where you died for all eternity_. But then he saw the beam of the Bifrost far off in the distance. This couldn’t be Hel then. Hel would not offer any hope of rescue. 

So that meant Thor had left him. That stung a bit, though Loki tried to rationalize it. _He must have thought I was dead_. That was the only way Loki could imagine his brother deciding to abandon him in this wasteland. Loki supposed he couldn’t really blame Thor. He had been certain that he was dying too. He could not begrudge Thor running off to save the rest of the world if he thought Loki was beyond saving – or at least, he would try not to. 

Loki looked down to take stock of the wound that should have been fatal. Miraculously, it was nearly healed. The skin was still raw where the blade had pierced him, but it was otherwise intact. Healing must have taken every ounce of his energy reserves, leaving him in a comatose state indistinguishable from death. Poor Thor had been forced to watch his apparent demise for the second time. _Will he mourn me again, I wonder?_

He could find Thor now and spare him his grief. A part of him wanted to more than he could say. The last few days working with his brother was the happiest he could remember being in years. Almost like old times, before he had ruined everything with his jealousy and misplaced ambition. He could go after Thor now, join him in his heroics, and everything could return to how it once was.

But another stronger part of him knew he had been handed an opportunity that he could not throw away. 

After all, what had Thor said right before he released him? He would grant him vengeance and afterward, his cell? Loki had no desire to go back there, especially now that he would no longer have Frigga’s visits to look forward to. Even if his sacrifice had Thor feeling merciful, it would not be his decision what to do with Loki once they returned to Asgard. He could hardly expect gentle treatment from the Allfather since he had now helped Thor commit treason in addition to all his other crimes. 

And of course, there were much darker reasons why Loki would benefit from staying dead, of which Thor knew nothing. 

The very thought twisted Loki’s stomach into knots. _If you fail, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you._ He knew it was only a matter of time before that promise was fulfilled. As loath as he was to admit it, his cell was probably the only thing that had kept him alive for the last year. Not even the Mad Titan was crazy enough to challenge the Allfather directly — 

And suddenly Loki knew exactly what he needed to do.

He could see golden figures appearing at the top of a nearby cliff. Odin must have discovered where he and Thor had gone and sent the royal guard through the Bifrost to capture them. There was no more time to consider, he needed to enact his plan now to have any chance of success. Steeling himself, Loki hurried over to the body of one of the elves to cast his first illusion. 

When he was done, he was staring down at his own dead body, which was disconcerting to say the least.

He concealed himself as he waited for the guards to arrive. They had decided to scatter to conduct their search, Loki saw with satisfaction. That would make things much simpler.

A single guard approached the cluster of fallen elves. When he was close enough to see that one of the bodies had long, dark hair and was clothed in green and gold, he broke into a run. For a moment, he simply stared down at the dead elf disguised as Loki as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing. Before he could summon the wits to call out to the other guards, the real Loki stepped up behind him, casting a spell to put him into a deep sleep. Loki levitated his body a safe distance away and carefully hid him behind a boulder. With any luck, by the time the guard awoke and returned to Asgard, it would be Loki that he was reporting to instead of Odin.

Loki surveyed his handiwork, quite pleased with himself. For once, everything was going according to plan. His only lingering regret was Thor. Thor who had yelled in anguish as Loki fell into the Void, who had tried desperately to convince him to come home on Midgard, who had held him and tried to comfort him in his seemingly final moments mere hours ago. If he went through with this, Thor would likely never forgive him.

_I’m sorry, brother._

Then Loki cast another illusion, shimmering faintly green before he went to join the rest of the guards.

**Author's Note:**

> I obviously do not own these characters. Thank you to Marvel for the inspiration!
> 
> Plot and dialogue drawn from Thor: The Dark World.


End file.
